Burchard, Jedediah

Burchard, Jedediah a Presbyterian minister, was born at Norwich, Conn., in 1790. His parents moved to Utica, N. Y., where he entered the store of Mr. Lynot Bloodgood, and was taken with him to Albany, where he became converted, and soon after began preparing for the ministry. He then went to live at Sackett's Harbor, continued his studies there, and began in small neighborhoods the work of an evangelist, to which his subsequent ministry was largely devoted. Licensed and ordained by the Black River Association, he joined the Presbytery of Watertown in 1825, and was actively engaged in revivals of religion in Jefferson and St. Lawrence counties, and occasionally elsewhere. In 1828 he organized Fayette Street Church, Utica, and served it for a time. Though afterwards a pastor or stated supply for short periods of the Chatham Street Chapel, New York city, and Adams, N. Y., his professional life was mainly spent in special meetings in central and western New York, in Canada, and New England. He was constitutionally eccentric. See Presbyterianism in Central NTew York, p. 279.